5. Red foxes, which are of a yellowish hue, and
6. White ones, fetch but three dollars each.
The Sting-gnat (Culex pulicaris) is a very minute insect, much the smallest of its genus, being about the size of a large flea, of a greyish or clouded white. Its sting is very severe, and leaves a blackish spot as large as that caused by a flea-bite. The wings of this species lie one over the other, as in (C. reptans) the kind already mentioned, p. [209].
In this part of the country, as in Umoean Lapmark, are many elevated fields of barren sand adjoining to the river, and sloping towards it, each of them divided
into quarters by transverse ditches. The river has washed away one of its banks so far as frequently to form a perpendicular cliff, exhibiting strata of light-coloured barren sand, which must be supposed to have been deposited there by water, as they lie horizontally. The neighbouring alps must have been the original boundaries of the current, till the quantity of water decreased. Then the large river shaped out its course, leaving several smaller channels, intersecting what is now the adjacent plain, with islands between them.
Half way between Svarlå and Harns I met with the (Pedicularis) Sceptrum Carolinum, first observed by Professor Rudbeck. This stately plant was not yet in flower. It grew in a dry soil. In the neighbouring watery places grew a new species of Marsh Ranunculus, (R. lapponicus,) having a calyx of three pale reflexed leaves, five or six narrow acute rue-like yellow petals, more upright than usual, their claws each furnished with a scale. Stamens nine to
twelve. Pistils six to twelve. Leaves commonly two to one stem.
June 27.
Near Harns is found a fine handsome blue clay, in some measure fire-proof; also a rare kind of iron ore.
The corn-fields here produce Echioides (Lycopsis arvensis), and the woods the most slender kind of Equisetum (sylvaticum). On the river's bank near Laxeden grew the Sorrel whose leaf is cut away in the middle, called Acetosa folio in medio deliquium patiente, (Rumex digynus,) but it was not now in flower.